Tourism Organizational Resilience to the Covid-19 Crisis: Evidence from Sichuan Province, China

Abstract

Tourism is a significant contributor to economic growth in many countries, and especially in developing countries. However, the outbreak of the Covid-19 has resulted in a global economic crisis that has significantly impacted global tourism. As a result, the ability of tourism businesses to survive and recover in this turbulent business environment, that is, their resilience has attracted greater research attention. While there has been some researches on the resilience of tourism enterprises during the COVID-19 pandemic, very few empirical studies have focused on the impact of leadership on organizational resilience. Therefore, to empirically explore the influence mechanism of transformational leadership on tourism organizational resilience during the pandemic, a questionnaire was conducted on 302 tourism business owners and managers in Sichuan Province, China, in October 2022. The analysis revealed that transformational leadership positively influenced organizational resilience. The three dimensions group voice climate, organizational culture and organizational learning partially mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational resilience. Perceived environmental uncertainty plays a positive moderating role in the relationship between transformational leadership, organizational culture and organizational learning. Several suggestions are given to enhance the resilience of tourism enterprises and accelerate industry recovery.